The cards they cannot play: Iran, America and the trap of unusable leverage

The strangest feature of the Iran war is not that both sides have leverage. It is that neither side can fully use the leverage it has. That is the defining reality of the conflict as it moves through its uneasy post-ceasefire phase. Washington has the naval power to sustain pressure on Iran’s ports and shipping. Tehran has the geography to keep the Strait of Hormuz from returning to normal. Both instruments are real. Both hurt. Yet neither can be pushed to its logical end without creating costs that escape the control of the side using it. The war has, therefore, entered a more dangerous stage than the familiar language of ceasefire suggests. The question is no longer simply whether Iran […]